


Domesticity and Boobs

by heartlocked



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/F, fem!lock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-20
Updated: 2012-06-20
Packaged: 2017-11-08 12:23:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartlocked/pseuds/heartlocked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Femlock! This was written for the AU prompt by fuckyeahjohnlockfanfic. In a nutshell, it's Sherlock, Joan, and how they feel about being women. Meta blah blah blah.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Domesticity and Boobs

She grimaced as she set the cold tea down, then glanced up to see Sherlock over her head and in her personal space. “Sod off,” Joan said amiably, refreshing the browser. “It gives me good ideas.” Sherlock snorted and swept back to her kitchen chemistry. “Seriously. How am I supposed to write a blog if I don’t know what one’s supposed to look like?”

Sherlock snorted again, but this time added, “The only thing more inane than writing your own blog is reading the pedestrian, self-absorbed tracts of others.”

John sighed. “And they say you have no charm.” She looked up at the sound of Sherlock’s concoction boiling over, and decided she was happier not knowing. “That better not be corrosive.”

After several minutes of silence—punctuated by the occasional sizzling—Joan spoke up again. “Did you mean what you said this morning? About being a man?” It had been a passing comment in a particularly interesting stream of curses, but it had piqued Joan’s curiosity nonetheless.

Sherlock didn’t look up. “No, I lied,” she said, then forgot to ignore Joan as she shot her a withering glare. “Obvious. I always mean what I say.”

“Right,” shrugged Joan. “And if I recall correctly, your next sentence had something to do with fucking a camel?”

The two-year-old in the next room studiously didn’t hear her.

“Okay, well,” Joan paused and tried a different track. “Why, exactly, do you wish you were a man?”

Sherlock set the beaker down and sighed. “A man is larger, stronger, and faster than a woman, though there are exceptions and these are generally regarded negatively. Men operate closer to the extremes of the intelligence range, so they’re more likely to be brilliant or, conversely, too stupid to cause trouble. A woman’s domestic tendencies preclude the accomplishment of anything worthwhile, and the sex lacks the drive, ambition, and courage given by testosterone. Those who don’t conform to the stereotype are subject to generally relevant discrimination based on the behaviors of the majority. In short, it’s inconvenient.”

Joan got up and walked over to the counter, tugging on her ponytail. “They have surgeries for that, you know.”

“I am well aware. However, such things cost time and money, and come with a most tiresome social stigma.”

Joan could only stare, elbows on the counter and hands forgotten where they were folded. “You really mean it. You wish you were a man.”

“For the third and final time—”

“It’s the tits, isn’t it.”

It was Sherlock’s turn to freeze in surprise, mouth still open and beaker in mid-pour. John giggled and then laughed out loud at her confusion, dropping her head on the counter as she shook. Sherlock smiled back tentatively. She had no idea what was so hilarious—or, more likely, wasn’t—but was willing to let the tension dissolve.

“Oh god,” said Joan, gasping for air, “of course you want to be a man; you’ve no idea what it’s like to actually have a rack.”

Sherlock stopped smiling in a hurry. “I have perfectly normal breasts, I’ll have you know.”

“Yeah, but you’re what, an A? No fun there.”

“They’re entirely adequate. I’m not planning to nurse anytime in the near future—or ever, for that matter.”

“But they’re not very squishy, are they.”

“What does it matter! They’re a hell of a lot easier to run with than those Ds of yours, and much more manageable.”

“Yeah, but you can’t hug yourself very well. Here,” she said, walking around the table to Sherlock. “Let me just show you. Turn around.”

Sherlock stared her down.

“It’s an experiment, Sherlock,” she sighed, and opened her arms. “Trust me.”

Sherlock’s brain registered a thousand things as Joan leaned in to hug her—the smell of Joan’s hair and skin, the slight inconsistencies between her ears, the stove must be turned off within 58 seconds—but mostly, it was…nice. Sherlock wasn’t much one for physical comforts, but Joan’s prized breasts fitted right beneath her (apparently neglected) own, and Joan was warm and…the hug was over before she could sort it all out. Joan was grinning up at her.

“Tell me that wasn’t good.”

“I might,” she cleared her throat, “need to subject that to scientific rigour later.”

Joan chuckled and opened the fridge as Sherlock narrowly avoided a fire. “I made fifty quid one night off these.”

Sherlock paused. “I never knew you were affiliated with…that line of work.”

“Oh, hell, nothing like that. Back in the army, there weren’t exactly a ton of women, though, and some evenings…it was all in good fun, though. Clothing stayed on, and it was just men, anyway.” She put the leftovers in the microwave (free, for once) and made an amused noise. “We all knew there wasn’t anything to it.”

There was a pause. “Did you ever have trouble with bigotry?” Sherlock feigned casual.

“Well, there’s always a few…but it’s hard to slander someone after they’ve pulled a bullet from your ass.”

Sherlock smirked. “Then I guess the better question is whether you put it there.”

“As the Americans say,” huffed Joan, now searching for a stool, “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

 Sherlock reached over and pulled down a plate for her. “I see, then, that you at least have no qualms about your sex.”

“I can reach, you know, if you’d just tell me where you’ve put the bloody stool. But hell no. Once a month I curse any god there is, but—”

“Your cycle is 26 days.”

_“Yes thank you Sherlock_ but yeah, overall I love it. You can talk about ‘cumbersome societal prejudices,’ but there is nothing better than the look on a man’s face when you’ve just  outshot him in every way possible. Plus, I mean, if you really need something you can always just…” Joan narrowed her eyes. “Oh no. Sherlock Holmes, you are _not_ telling me you’ve never flirted your way through barriers.”

Sherlock looked up. “I thought you said I didn’t have the ‘rack’ for it.”

“Screw the tits, with those eyes and that skinny little ass?”

Sherlock gave her most ladylike grunt.

“And…hold on. You are the master of motherfucking disguise. You could go out in male disguise whenever you needed to.”

Studiously ignoring her.

Joan slumped against the wall. “Sherlock Holmes, you are the most impossible person I know.” The genius didn’t reply, so Joan took her pasta into the other room for a lunch date with the internet.

After a solid five minutes (and twenty-seven seconds) of loud typing, Sherlock glanced over at her. Seeing the tense profile, she felt something akin to remorse. She’d hurt her—again—but what exactly had she done? Sherlock was generally obnoxious, yet it didn’t usually bother Joan (with the exception, of course, of roughly thirty-eight hours every twenty-six days). So what if Sherlock felt that being a man would be more convenient? It wasn’t like—

Oh.

Oh.

Sherlock looked harder at Joan, and this time _observed._ Yes, there it was; the signs were visible, if you were looking for them. How could she have missed it? Although—no, it wasn’t her fault. Joan had said it was fine, and at the time, it had been. Sometime in the past few months, then…it was always so difficult to tell with women. It was normal for females to treat friends with affection, playing with hair and generally crossing boundaries men left well enough alone. The signs of attraction had been subtle, even for Sherlock Holmes.

So what now? A few months ago she would have scoffed at the doctor’s weakness and ignored it. Now, however (she hated to admit it but), Joan was important. If Sherlock was lightning—liquid brilliance miles above the mortals—then Joan was her lightning rod: grounded, unremarkable, yet able to bridge the gap. The electricity must hurt her: but by Tesla did she glow.

Sherlock had been telling the truth when she said “not my area”…and yet, she’d never really bothered to ascertain. That hug had been…it was good. She’d been somewhat facetious about the ‘scientific rigour’, but perhaps there was something she could give back to Joan.

Joan was still irritated when she heard Sherlock come into the room. She sighed. “Look, Sherlock—”

The detective’s face was inches from her own. Joan’s words died on her lips, as said lips were currently under a very thorough scrutiny. “Sherlock, um,”

“Do you want me to move?” Sherlock almost-snapped.

“Um,” was all Joan managed to get out as Sherlock slowly, methodically leaned in and kissed her.

It wasn’t like anything Joan had imagined, really. She’d daydreamed this scenario in a thousand different ways: rough, gentle, after a crime scene or early in the morning; but there was no way of predicting how unexpectedly cool her lips were, or how light the hand on her shoulder was. It was a simple kiss, no tongues or groping, clinical and efficient. With another woman it would have been almost offensively chaste. As Sherlock pulled back, however—eyes narrowed as though Joan was a bacteria sample—all she had was, fuck. I just got kissed by _Sherlock Holmes._

“Sherlock. You, ah, you…I thought…”

“English can only take so much abuse, Joan.” But her eyes were crinkled a little bit, the way they did when she smiled.

“I thought…this…wasn’t your…aren’t you asexual?” she finally blurted out.

Sherlock snorted, though she couldn’t entirely hide the smile. “When I said ‘not my area,’ I meant that I’d had neither the inclination nor the motivation to explore sex. The body is, after all, transport.”

Joan shook her head a little. “But you just…”

“Kissed you, yes. A motivation has now presented itself. And while it’s too early to know for sure…the inclination may come with it.”

Joan looked hard at her. “You realized I wanted you.”

“Obviously.”

“And so you…experimented? Was that what that was?” Her cheeks flushed with anger and the beginnings of a deep, deep mortification.

“A rather successful one, for a preliminary trial.” Sherlock looked slightly worried. “On my half. Was it…not good?”

Joan exhaled. _No it is not fucking ‘good,’ Sherlock, I am a human being and not some shitty corpse that you can just experiment on_. As she opened her mouth, however, she looked Sherlock in the eye and the words vanished.

Oh.

_Sherlock isn’t even sure she wants this…but she’s doing it for you, dumbass. She wants you to be happy. She’s doing this for you, the only way she knows how. And—just maybe—she liked it, too._

Joan ran her hands over her face, looked up, and smiled right into Sherlock’s heart. “Sherlock Holmes, you are a mediocre kisser.” The smile creased her face as she paused for effect. “That being said, I hear you have a free afternoon and a damned good tutor. Lessons begin at your leisure—and I can promise you won’t be bored.”

Sherlock blinked twice, then smiled slowly. “I do hate boredom,” she confessed, and shot the camera on the wall for some privacy.

Which doesn’t affect us, but we’ll respect their wishes.

For now.

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, took us all by surprise there. Sister-work (ha) to be posted sometime after I get around to writing it. Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoyed!


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